


Our Fragile Selves

by arrozconmangos



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrozconmangos/pseuds/arrozconmangos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You called me honey," he says, like it's a dirty word.</p><p>Stiles freezes. Yes, there's no denying that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Fragile Selves

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the meme at tnw-kinkmeme.livejournal. com Here's the prompt:
> 
> Derek/Stiles - Near death experience, accidental revelation
> 
> I'd really love to see a fic where Derek is near death and Stiles has either saved him or is in the process of saving him when, in the middle of his usual witty banter and thinly veiled attempts to offer comfort, something slips out where he accidentally calls Derek sweetheart or something similar. 
> 
> He is more frank and honest with his emotions than he means to be on account of being genuinely afraid for Derek's life. Maybe he tries to play the slip of the tongue off like a joke later when Derek has recovered but Derek's not buying it.

It’s July, at least ninety-five degrees even in the shade and to be fair, there isn’t much shade inside a decrepit, half-collapsed, old house. When Stiles stands in the kitchen and looks up, he can see the bright, blue sky through patchy holes in the second floor and roof.

He could be hanging with Scott at the Vet’s office right now, but he’d chosen ‘mystery venture’ with Derek over ‘bathing mangy dogs’ with Scott. It had been a close call, but still, when in the world did he start to prefer time spent with Derek to time spent with Scott?

Probably around the same time he realized he wasn’t in love with Lydia Martin anymore.

He has to draw the line somewhere, though.

“There’s no one here,” he calls out, absently turning the knobs of the sink faucet. “Can we go?”

The creaking of warped floor boards under Derek’s shoes is the only response.

“You better not be thinking of making this your new home away from home, ‘cause I can come up with about a dozen reasons why that’s a bad idea right now.”

Derek appears in the doorway to the kitchen. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Do you want an alphabetical list or by order of importance?”

Derek bypasses him and walks carefully into what must have been a dining room and now resembles a horror film set. “It has character.”

“It has black mold and asbestos.” Stiles hovers in the doorway, arms crossed, watching Derek cross to the front windows. The floor creaks heavily beneath him.

“Are you sure you should even be walking in there? It looks like--”

He doesn’t get to finish his thought, because he’s right. The floor boards creak and crescendo into splinters and snaps. In an instant, Derek disappears, swallowed up into the basement in a cloud of dust and mildew.

Stiles stares at the ragged hole in the floor, heart pounding up into his throat.

“Derek?” He wants to yell, but his throat is too tight, so he tries again and manages a whisper. “Derek?”

There’s no answer. The house settles and the dust clears up, letting the sunlight in again. There’s a crater in the middle of the dining room.

Stiles darts back to the kitchen, where he’d seen a door that he’d assumed led to the basement. He flings the door open and races down the stairs, squinting into the darkness.

It looks like someone had tried to tear the basement up, maybe to refinish it at some point. There are chunks of concrete threaded with metal rebar everywhere. Light filtering through dirty sub-ground windows casts odd shadows over spider webs and creeping vines. In the corner, under a halo of dusty sunlight, Derek lays on his back.

Stiles scrambles over the mess to get to him, crawling on his knees over broken wood and rough concrete.

“Derek?”

Derek squints up at him through half-lidded eyes. “M’not going to live here.”

“Definitely not.”

“I’m okay,” Derek says, but he makes no attempt to move.

Stiles scans his body and freezes with his hands halfway to Derek’s face. Even in the heat of the day, his body goes cold. There’s a piece of rebar, several inches long, sticking out of the right side of Derek’s chest. His t-shirt is already soaked wet and dark around it.

Derek is not so out of it that he doesn’t follow Stiles line of sight. Clumsily, he raises one hand to fumble at his chest.

Stiles grabs his wrist before he can actually bump the piece of metal. “Don’t touch it.”

Derek nods and closes his eyes. “Shit.”

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Stiles presses his fingers to Derek’s cheeks, trying to force his eye contact. “You’ll heal.”

Derek shakes his head, teeth clenched. “I can’t. It won’t. Not when it’s still there.”

Stiles looks at the wound. He can’t quite believe it’s real until he sees the not-so-slow run of blood collecting in the dust beneath Derek. Fear shakes through him like an ice cube down his spine.

The metal is connected to the concrete, there’s no way it can just be pulled out.

Stiles feels numb. “I’ll call Scott. Just hold on.”

“No.” Derek reaches up blindly. He’s wheezing and gasping already. “There’s no time. Just... just...”

“What?” Stiles asks, too loud and shrill in the echoey basement. “Just what? Let you die?”

Derek opens his eyes just enough to glare. His breath sounds sticky-wet and his teeth are red when he speaks. “Just help me.”

Then, he tries to sit up.

Stiles will never forget the inhuman, wail of agony that comes after that.

“No, no, no.” Stiles is in a full panic now, hands everywhere and doing nothing. “Don’t you have any sense of self preservation? You can’t do that.” He tries to push Derek back down, but Derek doesn’t give up and when Stiles actually does manage to push him back a bit, he shouts out loud, trailing off into a whine.

“Oh, shit. Shit. Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Stiles blinks hard against the mental images of rebar back and forth in skin, through tissue, and lung.

Derek grabs at the front of his shirt with bloody hands. “Please.”

“Okay.” Stiles nods, reaching around Derek to hug his shoulders and lift. “Okay. Let’s just... Oh, God. Come on.”

Derek tries to help, but mostly he’s just whimpering into Stiles’ neck.

Stiles shushes him, instinctively. “It’s okay. Almost there, honey. Just relax.”

Stiles braces himself as best he can and _heaves_.

They land in a tangled mess on the broken wood of the floor. Stiles shoves himself up, pulls at Derek’s t-shirt until it’s bunched up and he can put pressure on the wound.

“‘S’okay,” Derek pants, tugging at him. “It’ll heal now.”

Stiles flexes his fingers, feels the fine bones of Derek’s ribs under his palm. “I’m gonna leave my hand here anyway. Just in case.”

Derek’s hand stills over his and his eyes slide closed.

“Hey, no dying now.”

“‘M’not. Jus’ need a minute.”

Stiles sits still, hand on Derek’s chest until the blood grows tacky and dry between them. When the adrenaline finally fades, exhaustion crashes over him, so he just leans over enough to lay beside Derek, keeping his hand in place.

The movement rouses Derek and he turns his head, nose bumping Stiles’ shoulder.

“You called me honey,” he says, like it’s a dirty word.

Stiles freezes. Yes, there’s no denying that.

He wiggles down until he can face Derek. “I also told you to relax while you had a piece of rebar through your chest, so let’s just dismiss everything that was said in the last hour as temporary insanity.”

Derek’s eyes are heavy and dark. “What if I don’t want to?”

Stiles doesn’t even pause for a breath. “I think my insanity might be more of the permanent variety anyway.”

Derek tips his head forward until his forehead is pressed against Stiles’. “Thank you.”

His eyes are closed again, but Stiles keeps his open, afraid to lose this moment, this dark, quiet, shared space between them. In the dusty sunlight, he reaches down, finds Derek’s hands between them, and holds on tight.

“You’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've written a few versions of hurt!derek at this point...if anyone has any prompts in this realm that you would trust me with, feel free to leave them in the comments. :)


End file.
